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Old-Salt

Someone else's fault. Now under the Tories....
NHS spending figures etc, aren't they great? Now under the Tories....
Funds already allocated to service housing. Now under the Tories....
This is not what the Army are telling us. Now under the Tories....
Figures manipulated to be deliberately misleading. Now under the Tories....
We inherited the problem. Now under the Tories....
We are conducting a review. Now under the Tories....

Is there a collective noun for the hair that gets caught in plug holes? If so that's what Liarbour polirticians are.

War Hero

LE

Never mind, don't think labour will get re-elected anyway. Morally bankrupt, corrupt, and caught in a world of spin - lets just hope that Cameron can pull it off. The Military, "inherently Tory" according to Brown? Only because you pushed us that way, oh, and by the way, I will be supporting any referendum on english independance.

Old-Salt

Seconded. I think what struck me the most was that traffic wardens are paid more than privates

My impression is that the Defence budget is being used and abused in order to further cut government spending or to send to other government ministries. As others on this site have pointed out before, it is not defence procurement which gets votes, it is schools and hospitals, policemen and so forth.

As others have also noted, it will take a disaster for people to sit up and notice. Wasn't there a big funding boost post- Falklands? Is the death of 10 soldiers at one incident (or more) going to do it?

GCM

Good article. As for traffic wardens getting paid more than squaddies, I think the quick answer's fairly simple- send traffic wardens. I'm sure the number of vehicle-borne IEDs would reduce significantly. Hurrah!

Old-Salt

Spanner Said âNever mind, don't think labour will get re-elected anyway. Morally bankrupt, corrupt, and caught in a world of spin - lets just hope that Cameron can pull it off.â

âThe Military, "inherently Tory" according to Brown? Only because you pushed us that way, oh, and by the way, I WILL BE SUPPORTING ANY REFERENDUM ON ENGLISH INDEPENDENCE.â

Donât be so quick to skip over this comment because it contains a point that truly requires a thread all of its own surely?

Strange how Brown, a Scot, invents something called âBritishnessâ because thereâs a gathering crowd calling for an English Parliament and he seeks to argue that to concede to such an unspeakable demand would lead to the dissolving of the Union.

Bet Brown didnât raise any such arguments when Labour pushed for a Welsh Assembly or a Scottish Parliament, or the Northern Irish Assembly â that such moves would jeopardise the continuance of the Union?

Just who is Brown to deny the English people their rights given that they were not consulted when Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were to be granted their political independence?

The English deserve nothing less than has been afforded their neighbours in Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland and we deserve to have English affairs debated and enacted by English elected members who are accountable to the electorate â not have a Scottish political Mafia ruling over us and who enact hasty and poor laws that will only apply in England and where they will not be held accountable to the electorate â they call this democracy?

LE

I deplored the cuts at the beginning of the '80s, I thought the Options for change were short sighted - going too far and I deplore the shortchanging of the MoD that is happening at the moment given that we are fighting in two areas of Ops.

Where I suspect I differ from many of the posters is in that I think that there should be a raise in income tax to pay for the necessary increase in MoD spending, rather that take it away from important spending elsewhere. In this I differ from my party who has decided in it's wisdom to change its tax policy to favour the extremely well off

LE

"Britain had 72 helicopters in Northern Ireland at the height of the IRA; but only 28 in Iraq last year. Over the past decade the government has failed the one public service that never fails the country."

' Over the past decade the government has failed the one public service that never fails the country'